The 52-year-old Victoria businessman, whose identity was not made public, allegedly infected two men. He claimed he always used a condom but prosecutors argued otherwise. DNA testing found the same strain of HIV in all three men.

In handing down the sentence, the County Court judge said: "I consider there is a need for this court to send a clear signal to the community of the requirement for personal responsibility. The prisoner, by the commission of these crimes, abused such requirement in the pursuit of his own sexual gratification."

Upon arrival at Victoria's Port Phillip Prison, the businessman attempted to hang himself. He was cut down by other inmates and hospitalized in critical condition.

Meanwhile, on March 4, an HIV-positive Victoria doctor, Christopher Denis Dirckze, 41, was forced to surrender his passport after relatives told authorities he may have been planning to flee the country. Dirckze was de-registered by the Medical Board last year for allegedly having unsafe sex with patients.

THAI AIDS COLONY PLAN DISSED

Thai AIDS activists have denounced a government-backed plan to set up a 10,000-bed AIDS colony at a Buddhist monastery in LopBuri.

The "community rehabilitation center," which already operates privately on a much smaller scale, would needlessly separate people with AIDS from the rest of society, critics said.

"Instead of being able to create a better understanding in society that AIDS victims can lead a normal life without spreading the virus to others ... a separate colony would make it all the more difficult for society to understand them," said Jon Ungphakorn of the AIDS organization Access.

The present facility, run by Abbot Phra Alongkot Tikapanyo, houses about 500 people with AIDS and has turned away thousands who want to live there, according to the Bangkok Post.

Contributing to this week's report: Ron Bell, Jess Durfee, Mike Friedman, John Hein, Mathew Jones, Kent Sproule.

Rex Wockner's weekly international news reports dating back to May 1994 can be searched at http://www.wockner.com. The reports in their original form are archived at http://www.qrd.org/qrd/www/world/wockner.html, which also archives Wockner's Quote Unquote column and some of his longer gay-press articles.